Putin´s mafia state will not host the football World Cup 2018

It is becoming more and more obvious that Putin´s mafia state will not host the football World Cup in 2018. Vladimir Putin bought the cup through massive corruption, which in itself should be enough to move the games to a more civilized environment. Now there is the case of massive Russian state sponsored doping:

Russia’s hosting of the World Cup is becoming increasingly problematic for FIFA’s leaders after the International Olympic Committee withdrew support for sporting events being staged in the doping-tainted nation.
The IOC’s move followed this week’s second damning World Anti-Doping Agency report, which accused Russia of state-sponsored doping.
The scandal landed at FIFA’s door after Russian football was for the first time implicated in the alleged doping cover-up by a country that has been entrusted with football’s most prestigious event in 2018.
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, whose department is accused of orchestrating the deception, is also head of the country’s football federation and is a member of FIFA’s ruling council.
Football’s governing body is standing by the 2018 hosts – just as it has done throughout six years of scrutiny since the contentious vote to hand the World Cup to Russia for the first time.
“Preparations for the World Cup are in full swing,” Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said Wednesday. “FIFA said yesterday that they are preparing for the World Cup to be held in Russia.”
And 2018 is not the only countdown. FIFA is less than 11 months from staging the Confederations Cup, an eight-team warm-up competition, in Russia.
Dick Pound, the former WADA president who authored the earlier report on doping in Russian track and field, said FIFA now has another “credibility issue” to confront following McLaren’s findings.

Putin´s Russia should be banned from all international sports events

Russia under Putin should be banned from all international sport events after this:

Dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games, according to the director of the country’s antidoping laboratory at the time.

The director, Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran the laboratory that handled testing for thousands of Olympians, said he developed a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and provided to dozens of Russian athletes, helping to facilitate one of the most elaborate — and successful — doping ploys in sports history.

It involved some of Russia’s biggest stars of the Games, including 14 members of its cross-country ski team and two veteran bobsledders who won two golds.

In a dark-of-night operation, Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence service surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at international competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said. For hours each night, they worked in a shadow laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a hand-size hole in the wall, to be ready for testing the next day, he said.

By the end of the Games, Dr. Rodchenkov estimated, as many as 100 dirty urine samples were expunged.

None of the athletes were caught doping. More important, Russia won the most medals of the Games, easily surpassing its main rival, the United States, and undermining the integrity of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.

“People are celebrating Olympic champion winners, but we are sitting crazy and replacing their urine,” Dr. Rodchenkov said. “Can you imagine how Olympic sport is organized?” 

Corruption pervades everything in Putin´s kleptocracy. This rotten mafia state does not deserve to be part of any civilized international co-operation. That´s why Russia should be banned from the Rio Olympic games. And, of course, FIFA (with its own corruption problems) should not allow Russia to host the football World Cup.

Panama Papers: Putin and his friends

An excellent video about the world´s richest and most corrupt political leader and his friends:

It’s inconceivable, though, that the network could have existed without the knowledge and support of Putin, said Karen Dawisha, a U.S. political scientist who has written extensively about Putin and his regime.
“He takes what he wants,” said Dawisha. “When you are the president of Russia you don’t need a written contract. You are the law.”

Here you can read more.

US official: The US government has known for "many, many years" that Putin is corrupt.

At last somebody in the US government speaks out about the corrupt Russian president:

Adam Szubin, who oversees US Treasury sanctions, told BBC Panorama that the US government had known Mr Putin was corrupt for "many, many years".
It is thought to be the first time the US has made such a direct accusation.
Washington has already imposed sanctions on Mr Putin's aides, but has stopped short of levelling corruption allegations at the president himself. --

In the programme, Mr Szubin spoke of how "we've seen [Mr Putin] enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who he doesn't view as friends using state assets", whether it concerned Russia's energy wealth or state contracts. "To me, that is a picture of corruption," he said. --

US government officials have been reluctant to be interviewed about President Putin's wealth, and Mr Szubin would not comment on a secret CIA report from 2007 that estimated it at around $40bn (£28bn).
But he said the Russian president had been amassing secret wealth. "He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man's wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth."

The European Union has a serious corruption problem

The European Union is not the kind of clean and uncorrupted place that many people in Europe think:

The EU likes to portray itself as a good and modern place to do business, despite the hiccups of the euro crisis and other distractions. Between this self-image and reality nevertheless lies a gap, and nowhere is this more evident than in spread of corruption around the continent. ---

If almost three quarters of businesses report widespread corruption, then surely this must be a serious issue, even though it is not one that receives much coverage. What is even more striking are the large differences in perceptions of corruption across Europe.
In Italy, 98 per cent of respondents reported widespread corruption, but only 11 per cent of Danish companies did. Italy and Denmark are the two extreme points in this survey around which other countries cluster.

The most corrupt places are in Italy’s loose geographic proximity. Spain (93 per cent), Greece (96 per cent), Romania (95 per cent) and Bulgaria (91 per cent) are all Southern European countries. Meanwhile, the least corrupt places such as Sweden (43 per cent), Finland (31 per cent), Britain (41 per cent) and maybe even Germany (though at 51 per cent perceived corruption) are all in central and northern Europe. ---

It is worth pointing out that corruption does not always mean bribes and kickbacks. In fact, these were ranked relatively low as the most common occurrences of corruption. Far more prevalent are favouring friends and family members in business, tax fraud and funding political parties in exchange for influence of public contracts.
Perhaps least surprising in the Eurobarometer results is the sector-by-sector analysis. By far the sector most affected by corruption is construction and building, in which 49 per cent of respondents across the EU said corruption was a problem for doing business. This was followed by engineering, electronics and motor vehicles (39 per cent) and financial services, banking and investment (35 per cent).
Another result of the survey which should be embarrassing for the EU is the anticipation of criminal sanctions. Almost two thirds of companies (62 per cent) stated that they would find it unlikely that corrupt people or businesses would be imprisoned or heavily fined. In fact, only 41 per cent believe that such people or businesses would even get caught.
The picture that emerges from this latest Eurobarometer survey is an unsettling one. It shows how the rule of law and clean business practices are not nearly as strong in Europe as one might have expected. After all, most EU member states are mature, developed economies with reasonably functional legal systems. We would instinctively expect them to score much better in corruption surveys.
Yet only in a handful of these countries does corruption seem to be under control (and practically all of them are Scandinavian).

Here you can read the entire article.

In the wake of the VW scandal: Some facts about Germany

Next time you hear Angela Merkel, or some other German politician or opinion maker, lecture other governments or leaders, remember this:

It is a common misconception to believe Germany is a place for ‘whiter than white’ business practices. That is, of course, how Germany likes to see itself and how it likes to advertise itself to the world. Self-righteousness is a virtue invented in Germany. Just look at the ways the Germans have tried to teach other nations lessons on fiscal policy, energy policy and now refugee policy.

The problem is that there is a gulf between this self-image and the reality of German life. The Germans are probably not worse than everybody else. But they certainly aren’t better, either.

Until not so long ago, bribing foreign officials was regarded as a commonplace business practice in Germany. Only in the late 1990s did Germany change finally its laws. Until then, believe it or not, it was not just acceptable but in fact tax deductible to pay out kickbacks as long as it secured lucrative international contracts. German tax law recognised bribes as nützliche Aufwendungen (‘useful expenditure’).

A culture of corporate corruption rocked several large German companies in recent years. The most prominent case was probably Siemens and shook the company between 2006 and 2008. Dealing with it cost Siemens close to €3bn and led to an exchange of the company’s top management and supervisory board. Siemens has since recovered and installed a chief compliance officer but it was a painful process to get there. Deutsche Bank has also been shaken by its involvement in the LIBOR rigging scandal and is still dealing with the consequences.

"Qatar and Russia shoul be stripped of the World Cup"

Fortunately there are still journalists who are not afraid of telling the truth:

To hell with diplomatic repercussions; every tournament awarded by Fifa must now be re-allocated or boycotted. To do otherwise would be to endorse or condone near-total corruption.

It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin will unashamedly make the opening ceremony to Russia’s 2018 World Cup a celebration of the annexation of Crimea, or an interpretative dance sequence commemorating the supply of surface-to-air military equipment that resulted in the deaths of 298 people when MH17 was shot down. But the event has clearly been purchased for the further glorification of a president more deserving of the attention of the International Court of Justice than the world’s sporting community.

Putin´s Russia and FIFA: "A perfect alliance of sleaze"

Rhyu Spaeth on Putin´s Russia and FIFA:

"The fact is that if FIFA were a country, instead of merely a corrupt international sporting organization, it would look a lot like Russia."

"Lies upon lies, systems of greed, hilariously quixotic vanity projects — all the hallmarks of deeply embedded corruption are apparent in both Putin's Russia and Blatter's FIFA."

Blatter had to go. The next one should be Vladimir Putin ...

Former Uefa president: England should be given the 2018 World Cup instead of mafia state Russia

Of course former Uefa president Johansson is right. The dictator of the mafia state called Russia, Vladimir Putin, should be denied the games due to massive corruption:

England should be given the 2018 World Cup instead of Russia, the former Uefa president Lennart Johansson has said.
Johansson, who lost the 1998 Fifa presidential election to Sepp Blatter, says the 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards should be reviewed in the light of the new corruption charges.
Johansson, 85, speaking after seven Fifa officials including two vice-presidents were arrested by police in Zurich for extradition to the USA, told the Swedish newspaper Sportbladet: “I expect they will reconsider the [World Cup] decisions. Blatter himself has said that the decision to go east wasn’t proper. I am sure the initiative will now be taken to make a new decision.
“England haven’t had it since 1966 and it’s considered ‘the motherland of football’, whatever we might think. They are worthy of the attention.”

Vladimir Putin named most corrupt Person of the Year

"Putin has been a finalist every year so you might consider this a lifetime achievement award. He has been a real innovator in working with organized crime. He has created a military-industrial-political-criminal complex that furthers Russia’s and Putin’s personal interests. I think Putin sees those interests as one and the same."

Another well deserved award for Vladimir Putin:

Vladimir Putin has been named the 2014 Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an award given annually to the person who does the most to enable and promote organized criminal activity.
Putin was recognized for his work in turning Russia into a major money-laundering center; for enabling organized crime in Crimea and in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine; for his unblemished record of failing to prosecute criminal activity; and for advancing a government policy of working with and using crime groups as a component of state policy.

The Los Angeles Times on Putin's Winter Games (and Russia): "Russia is not ready to claim it is a modern state"

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi have begun:

Journalists and travelers to the Games have been sending stories, photos and tweets about new hotels that are open for business only in the sense that they will take your money. Muddy construction sites surround the unfinished lodgings. Front desks are unmanned. Doorknobs are missing. Light bulbs are scarce. Water from faucets comes out brown and with warnings to avoid using it for drinking or washing. Toilets can’t flush away toilet paper. Furnishings are so spare and stark they make a Motel 6 look like the Ritz. 

Poverty cannot be an excuse for this. Russia has set a record for spending on an Olympics. The Vancouver games four years ago cost Canada $7.4 billion. By the time it is all over, the Sochi Games are expected to cost nearly 10 times that amount. Of course, the Canadians mounted their games in a big city with a well-established, world-class ski resort nearby. The modest Black Sea town of Sochi had to be transformed into a venue for winter sports, something few people would have dreamed of doing, given the area’s temperate climate and swaying palm trees along the beach.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin dreamed it and then willed it into being. Probably no leader since Adolf Hitler has invested so much of his own prestige in an Olympics. Putin has overseen every detail, down to attending the rehearsals for the opening night extravaganza. These Games are meant to be proof that Putin has restored the largest country in the world to equal status with other great powers.---

The huge price of the Sochi Olympics is clear evidence that, just as the hotels really are not ready for guests, Russia is not ready to claim it is a modern state. Like a Mafia don, Putin may long for respectability, but the truth is, he merely sits atop a cabal of racketeers who want nothing more than to get rich at the expense of Mother Russia.

Spot on description by the Los Angeles Times!

EU Home Affairs Commissioner: Corruption in the European Union "breathtaking"

The European Commission has for the first time published a report on corruption in the EU member countries. The result is not flattering. Corruption is estimated to cost the EU economy 120 billion euros ($162.19 billion) annually - the size of the EU's annual budget. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, who presented the report, said the extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking":

She said the true cost of corruption was "probably much higher" than 120bn.

Three-quarters of Europeans surveyed for the Commission study said that corruption was widespread, and more than half said the level had increased.

"The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems," Ms Malmstroem wrote in Sweden's Goeteborgs-Posten daily.

The cost to the EU economy is equivalent to the bloc's annual budget.

For the report the Commission studied corruption in all 28 EU member states. The Commission says it is the first time it has done such a survey.

What is interesting is that the report did not include a chapter assessing corruption within the EU Commission and other EU institutions. There were plans to include such a chapter, but - surprise, surprise - they were dropped!

No wonder then that European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly demanded in a statement, that the EU institutions should be included in the next corruption report. However, it is highly unlikely that the overpaid eurocrats in Brussels will agree.

The cosy relationship between the IOC and Putin's mafia state



Killy on Putin:

"When he plays sad tunes on the piano at the end of an evening with 10 ministers singing along, that's not hum-drum."


"Putin has staked his reputation on the smooth hosting of the winter games. Based on the planning, it either speaks to how little he values his reputation, or more likely, that beneath the steely glare and martial arts muscles, he’s being exposed as little more than a thuggish front man for a kleptocracy.
According to a detailed report issued by Russian opposition leaders in May, businessmen and various consiglieres of Putin have stolen up to $30 billion from funds intended for Olympic preparations. This has pushed the cost of the winter games, historically far less expensive than their summer counterpart to over $50 billion, more than four times the original estimate. That $50 billion price tag would make them the most expensive games in history, more costly than the previous twenty-one winter games combined. It’s a price tag higher than even than the 2008 pre–global recession summer spectacle in Beijing."

Dave Zirin in The Nation


An interview in the French weekly Journal du Dimance the head of the Coordination Commission for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, former alpine skiing star Jean-Claude Killy says something about the cosy relationship between the IOC and Vladimir Putin's mafia state:

Former alpine skiing star Jean-Claude Killy said Sunday he enjoys "a very interesting relationship" with Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president does not deserve the criticism levelled at him.
"I've developed a very interesting relationship with him," the triple Olympic champion said in an interview with French weekly Journal du Dimanche.
"I've worked with him for seven years, which has given me an opinion that is a little different from the one that is widely circulated," said Killy, head of the Coordination Commission for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Killy, 70, said "everything is going marvellously well" in his dealings with the Russian strongman. "You can get ahold of him in a minute just by calling his chief of staff."
"The Putin I know is not the one described in the newspapers, where you see real 'Putin-bashing'," he told the paper.
"I have no reason to follow the crowd; I trust what I see. When he calls me from Moscow at three in the morning his time to wish me a happy birthday, I find that nice."
He added: "When he plays sad tunes on the piano at the end of an evening with 10 ministers singing along, that's not hum-drum."
The run-up to the Winter Games to be held in Sochi from February 7 to 23 has been marred by controversy, notably over a law against "gay propaganda" that Putin signed in June.

Killy's praise for the dictator does not come as a surprise. Already in September this extraordinarily naïve and subservient man gave his stamp of approval to Russia's controversial law banning gay propaganda and the preparations for the games:

THE International Olympic Committee has dismissed concerns over Russia's law banning gay propaganda, saying it doesn't violate the Olympic charter.

Jean-Claude Killy, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission, gave his stamp of approval during a news conference on Thursday at the conclusion of the commission's 10th and final visit to Sochi before the 2014 Winter Games, which begin on February 7

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights organisation in the US, condemned the IOC's assessment of the Russian law.

"If this law doesn't violate the IOC's charter, then the charter is completely meaningless," HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement. "The safety of millions of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Russians and international travellers is at risk, and by all accounts the IOC has completed neglected its responsibility to Olympic athletes, sponsors and fans from around the world."

He noted that Mr Killy spoke a day after gay rights activists were arrested outside the Moscow headquarters of the Sochi Olympics organising committee for protesting the law.

Mr Killy said the IOC commission was pleased with the ongoing construction ahead of the games, which with a total cost of $51 billion will be the most expensive Olympics in history.

Killy began kowtowing to Putin already in 2008. Here is a transcript from Putin's (then Prime Minister) webpage:

Jean-Claude Killy (in translation): Thank you very much for the invitation and the meeting.

It is indeed a great honour and a great pleasure for me to work on this exciting project on behalf of the International Olympic Committee.
You told your counterparts that it was perhaps the chance of a lifetime to do a job like that. But for us, the International Olympic Committee, it is also a unique opportunity.
Vladimir Putin: I know you have made some remarks about document and information scheduling. We discussed them yesterday.
My colleagues must have informed you that we have prepared a special computer programme to follow progress on each facility. The programme will also give an overall view of the whole project, enabling us, the International Olympic Committee, and you as its representative to monitor the general picture and particular activities daily and even hourly.
Jean-Claude Killy: I am glad, because I think it is the utmost in organisation.
Vladimir Putin: It will be a success, I am sure.
Jean-Claude Killy: We are also absolutely sure.

PS

No wonder Killy and the IOC do not see anything wrong with the planning of the Sochi Olympics. They quite obviously rely on the "hourly" information from Putin's "special computer programme" - "the utmost in organisation".

(image by Wikipedia)

New Russian initiative: G20 network to block corrupt officials' rights to international travel

Lots of empty seats on international flights out of Moscow in the future?
Image by  wikipedia

Russian diplomacy is advancing on a broad front. If this new Russian initiative succeeds, there will be plenty of empty seats on international flights out of Moscow:

Russia has asked G20 members to create a special body authorized to block officials' rights to international travel if they are suspected of corruption. The proposal is part of Russia’s anti-corruption strategy.

Mr. Dmitry Feoktistov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's New Challenges and Threats Department, gave the following details to the Moscow Times:

"So far, the network exists only on paper. Essential aspects are still to be defined, for instance, how the network will work and who should be considered a corrupt official [either a convicted felon or a person suspected of corruption]," 

The deputy director is presumably right now busy defining whether Vladimir Putin should be allowed to make one last trip before his rights to international travel are blocked.

Putin praises huge military exercise

The Russian Navy's landing ship Minsk 127 in Oresund on July 10, 2013.

"Russia will continue to build up its own defense capabilities according to foreseeable threats"

"... there are methodical attempts being carried out to undermine the strategic balance" 

 "In fact the second phase of the U.S. global missile defense system has begun and there is continued probing into the possibility for further expansion of NATO to the East."

Vladimir Putin (February 26, 2013)

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is trying to divert attention away from the rampant corruption, stifling of the opposition and mismanagement of the economy in his country by bringing back the good old days of the cold war: 

A surprise snap inspection of unprecedented scale of the current combat readiness of Russian troops in Russia's Far Eastern and Central military districts ended on Sunday. The Russian Defense Ministry will discuss and analyze the overall results of the exercise at a special meeting on Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already described the results as more than satisfactory, noting there had not been a single serious violation or failure.

The exercises involved five Russian armies, the Third Air Force and Air Defense Command including strategic aviation, and the Pacific Fleet.

Some 160,000 servicemen, approximately 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 aircraft and 70 warships took part in the drills, stated Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

"Such exercises have not been held since the Soviet era, or perhaps even during that period, Putin said on Wednesday after flying over the exercise in a helicopter accompanied by Shoigu.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the snap drills on July 12.

It is the third surprise combat readiness check since January and follows a major shake-up at the top of a military establishment tarnished by persistent evidence of rampant corruption.

Read the entire article here

Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_07_22/Results-of-massive-military-drills-more-than-satisfactory-Putin-1555/

Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_28/Russia-will-continue-building-up-its-defenses-Putin/

Friendship in Putin's Russia

"Corruption has also reinforced Putin’s management principle number one: friends can have anything they want and the rest can go to hell. Obedience of the law and delivering any kind of justice do not form part of the deal for the civil servants of the Putin regime. The supreme principle is personal loyalty. The main guideline of the authorities today is: 'Stay loyal and you’re free to steal, let the side down and you go to jail'."

Putin. Corruption. An independent white paper


The Rotenberg brothers, Arkady and Boris, are typical examples of what it means to be friends with Vladimir Putin. They have been able to amass billions during the years their boyhood friend and judo partner from St. Petersburg has ruled Russia: 

Arkady Rotenberg, the boyhood friend and former judo partner of black-belt President Vladimir Putin, already is collecting his winnings from what promises to be the most expensive Winter Olympics ever next year.

Rotenberg’s companies have been awarded at least 227 billion rubles ($7.4 billion) of contracts for the 2014 Sochi Games, according to figures compiled from corporate and government filings. That’s more than the entire budget for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, though it represents just 15 percent of Russia’s latest estimate for the Sochi event.

Those contracts, which number at least 21, include a share of an $8.3 billion transport link between Sochi and ski resorts in the neighboring Caucasus Mountains, a $2.1 billion highway along Sochi’s Black Sea coast, a $387 million media center, and a $133 million stretch of venue-linking tarmac that will double as Russia’s first Formula One track.

“This is a monumental waste of public money,” Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist at the University of Michigan who tracks Olympic spending, said by phone from Ann Arbor. “A small number of people at the top have control of resources and there is no accountability.”

Read the entire article here

The independent white paper on corruption in Putin's Russia, published in 2011, gives some useful background information about the Rotenberg brothers' - now worth $2.97 billion each:

Little-known entrepreneurs in the 1990s, the Rotenbergs are now dollar billionaires, the largest suppliers of pipes to Gazprom, and major pipeline construction contractors. Having bought up Gazprom’s construction assets at a rock-bottom price, the Rotenbergs set up a company called StroiGasMontazh. By 2008, this company was winning tender after tender for pipeline construction. [Source: Gazprom Looks After Its Own, Vedomosti, 10.09.2009]. StroiGasMontazh won the tender to build the North Stream pipeline, despite the cost being three times that of building similar pipelines in Europe! Despite the fact that our workers are paid far less than European ones.

Without even going through a tendering process, the Rotenbergs were given the contract to build the epoch-making Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline – at the astronomical price of 210 billion roubles.

The Rotenberg were also given the Dzhugba-Lazarevskoye-Sochi Olympic pipeline contract without having to go to tender.

Last Sunday the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat published an in-depth interview with Boris Rotenberg's 32 year old son Roman, who has both a Finnish and a Russian passport. Judging from his reply to a question about whether the Rotenbergs have been given contracts without proper tenders, the London educated young man - now also vice president of Gazprombank - appears to have a sense of humor:

"The policy of the government is that everything is put out to tender. If we have the best bid, the government approves it."

Putin's loyal friends given Moscow's most expensive flats

Putin's friends can enjoy the lights of Moscow from the city's most expensive  flats.

To be a friend of dictator Vladimir Putin comes with certain benefits: 

House No. 3 on Shvedskiy Tupik, or Swedish Blind Alley, is under the protection of Russia’s version of the U.S. Secret Service because many of its occupants are Putin’s most powerful allies, including OAO Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin, VTB Group CEO Andrey Kostin, Gunvor Group oil-trading billionaire Gennady Timchenko and former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, according to two residents who asked not to be identified because the information is private. ---

Other Putin colleagues with apartments in the building include Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko, OAO Transneft CEO Nikolay Tokarev, OAO Sovcomflot Chairman Ilya Klebanov and former Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, one resident said.---

Two of the building’s three dozen apartments, one 1,000 square meters (10,800 square feet) and the other 846 square meters, have been vacant for more than a year and are priced at $50 million and $42 million, respectively, according to Justified Quality Estate and Mayfair Properties, the agents for the unidentified sellers.

That makes them the most expensive flats in Moscow per meter, said Alexander Pypin, chief analyst at real estate researcher Gdeetotdom.ru.

“Those prices protect the inhabitants from outsiders,” said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a former member of Putin’s United Russia party who studies the elite at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Residents are guaranteed to never meet anyone they would consider rabble.” --

It’s not clear if Putin’s allies bought the apartments or got them for free. Once an official is assigned a flat, it usually remains state property for a year before the occupant is allowed to privatize it at no cost, Kryshtanovskaya said.

Read the entire article here.

Robert D Kaplan praises criminal dictator Vladimir Putin

Kaplan: "Putin must seek a buffer zone in Eastern Europe; Russian history demands no less of him."

Robert D. Kaplan, Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor, was in 2011 and 2012 chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's "Top 100 Global Thinkers". Having read Kaplan's article "The World Through Putin's Eyes" - which marks a new low in any foreign policy writing - one wonders who the other top 99 "Global Thinkers" on the FP  list are.

My initial reaction was that Kaplan must be joking, but unfortunately this "Global Thinker" seems to be dead serious: 

Few people comprehend Russia’s vulnerabilities like its leader, Vladimir Putin. He must try to govern a country that extends through nearly half the longitudes of the earth but that has fewer people than Bangladesh. What’s more, Russia’s population is declining, not increasing. All the Arctic seas to Russia’s north are ice-blocked many months of the year, so with the exception of its Far East, Russia is essentially a landlocked nation. Moreover, Russia’s flat topography affords little natural protection and is therefore bereft of natural borders. Land powers, as they have no seas to protect them, are more insecure than island nations and continents like the United States and Great Britain.

Putin knows that it hasn’t been just the French and the Germans who have invaded Russia from the west in centuries past, but Swedes, Poles, and Lithuanians, too. So Putin must seek a buffer zone in Eastern Europe; Russian history demands no less of him. This is not the recreation of the Warsaw Pact we are talking about. For the need to economically support disparate states in Eastern Europe for half a century was a burden that helped topple the Soviet Union. Putin knows, therefore, that Russia cannot rule Eastern Europe. But he does require a degree of diplomatic and economic acquiescence in order to keep countries like Poland and Romania hobbled.--

American journalists, politicians and government officials must drive Putin to distraction. They assault him on moral grounds. After all, “He is a dictator!” they say. “He tolerates and even encourages corruption and rampant thuggery!” But do they know I am dealing with Russia — not with the United States? Putin must think. Are they aware that when I took power there was political chaos and criminal anarchy, with ordinary Russians robbed of their dignity.

Back in the Kremlin, the corrupt dictator of "the virtual mafia state"  (State Department cable) must be smiling - this kind of praise  is a rare treat for the former second rate KGB agent, who now is trying to destroy all opposition to his criminal regime. 

The Economist on dictator Putin's Russia: "A problem with Russian politics is that so much of it happens in one man's head"

The Economist is spot on with this characterization of the political situation in Vladimir Putin's Russia right now:

A problem with Russian politics is that so much of it happens in one man’s head. A turn towards repression may not be a sign of Mr Putin’s strength, but rather of his fear and desperation. Some advisers say he is worried about instability and is doing as much as he can to eliminate anything or anyone that contributes to it. This also affects his economic decisions. “He resists spending money or conducting economic reforms because they will yield short-term instability,” says one analyst. The result is falling investment and slower growth.

The Economist's conclusion is not surprising:

“Contradictions and injustices within the society are growing and instead of trying to resolve them peacefully, the Kremlin uses force, which makes a peaceful transition of power unlikely,” says one businessman. The trouble may be a long way off or it may come soon—Russia’s history shows that it is not possible to predict. But those who greeted Mr Putin’s return to the Kremlin with the mournful conclusion that they would be stuck with him until 2024 may have got it wrong.

The longer dictator Putin manages to stay on, the less peaceful will his departure be. 

A Bloomberg editorial on corruption in Putin's Russia

"The editors" of Bloomberg have written an editorial about corruption in Putin's Russia:

Unfortunately, corruption is an integral part of the state- based economic system Putin has built since he took power in 2000. In the oil and gas sector, for example, the government controls 45 percent of production, compared with 10 percent in 1998-1999, according to research by BNP Paribas. Managers of state-owned oil and gas companies are usually former government officials, and their companies are routinely tapped to fund unrelated projects such as the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The natural- gas monopoly OAO Gazprom’s budget for such initiatives in 2011- 2014 is $14.3 billion, according to BNP.

Still, the "editors" appear to believe that the same Putin, who created the corrupt economic system, somehow would be willing and capable to reform it:

President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on corruption is vital to Russia’s future. It’s also certain to fail unless he recognizes the shortcomings of his methods.

How naive can you be?